Saturday, April 28, 2012

First, someone called Sten Lindstrom comes out with supposedly new
revelations about the Bofors scandal. Chitra Subramaniam, who originally broke
the whole story and followed it for long also surfaced after all these years to
talk about it. Some in the Indian media were quick to dub Lindstrom the Swedish ‘Deep Throat’, after the famous
Watergate Deep Throat (William Mark Felt). On a lighter side, they do share something in common though.
The Watergate deep throat was named after a controversial porn movie titled ‘DeepThroat’ which was released
in the same year as the Watergate burglary and the Swedish DeepThroat comes
after the infamous Abhishek Manu Singhvi
sex tapes. The remote similarity ends there. There’s just one small difference:
the original DeepThroat led to a dozen or so convictions leading up to the
resignation of President Richard Nixon. The so-called Swedish DeepThroat is
still where Bofors is – Zero convictions. Of the 64 crores of bribes in Bofors
not a single rupee has been recovered, not a single conviction has happened and
some of the players are dead. In contrast, by strange coincidence, another case
of bribery involving Bangaru Laxman,
former president of BJP, in a sting operation by Tehelka came to a conclusion. Today
Bangaru was sentenced to four years in prison and a fine of Rs.1 Lakh, the same
amount of bribe he has been convicted of taking.

The CBI court judge, sentencing Bangaru Laxman, said it is time to
"shun" the "sab chalta
hai" (It's OK, whatsoever!) attitude and courts should deal strictly
with persons found guilty of corruption. With all due respects, your honour,
most corruption cases don’t end up in courts, they are washed up by our govt
and our media. Worse, in my belief the Bangaru Laxman case was one of a fake
operation and more of ‘entrapment’
by a journal seeking ‘instant’ fame rather than genuine investigative
journalism. It’s a classic case of journalism by ‘script writing’ rather than investigating actual events and
wrong-doings. But that is not even the issue here.

Within hours of Laxman’s conviction our media was clamouring to equate
Bofors with Bangaru. Rajdeep Sardesai,
who called the 64 crores of Bofors scam “loose
change” in comparison to current scams like 2G, suddenly found the 1 lakh
bribe case similar to Bofors. He’s not the only one though. Arnab Goswami, who runs his own private
court on TV, actually ran a debate “Bofors
V Bangaru” on TimesNow on the night of Friday, April 27. The debate
involved Meenakshi Lekhi (BJP), Vinod Sharma (Smirk Times), Manish Tewari (Head
to Toe fame) and a couple more people. In the melee the discussion ended up in
a question by Arnab to Lekhi: “Are
journalists being accused of blackmailing?” (In the context of the Tehelka
type spurious sting operations). Hmmm! Arnab
shot that without thinking too much.

Long back I had narrated how media outlets approach corporate entities
to get their share of ads that were released with a competitor. Nothing wrong
with that, except that where companies were reluctant, the second-rung media
threatened them with exposure of various misdeeds by the company. Not unusual
considering most companies are in the practice of avoiding excise, customs or
other taxes. The journals and journalists keep a dossier on the misdeeds of
such companies and use it to blackmail them into running campaigns in their
journals similar to the ones run in other media. This gets even better when the
media outlet has juicy tidbits of the private lives of the CEOs or owners of
businesses. Don’t be surprised if you even find govt officials or police
officials under payroll of a media outlet. Once such officials are ‘sanitised’
they then remain obligated to leak news and confidential reports. Else!

One of the most glaring cases of journalists blackmailing a businessman
comes from the house of Arnab’s own group – The Times Group. Sure, Arnab wasn’t
associated with the group then but he’s seriously mistaken to imagine
journalists don’t indulge in extortion and blackmailing. Here’s the interesting
story:

“Such spurious news has included gushing endorsements of flop movies,
fashion and lifestyle products and the promotion of hotels and restaurants that
enter into a payment arrangement with the organisation. The reader has no clue
that the adulatory report is nothing but a paid advertisement masquerading as objective
reportage or opinion. Even while the debate over the ethics of a newspaper
'selling news' was hotting up into a regular war of words between two of the
country's top-selling English dailies, journalism was dealt another stunning
blow. Last week, the Mumbai police arrested Rishi Chopra of The Economic
Times along with an accomplice (a former journalist with another business
daily) in an alleged extortion attempt. The duo was trapped accepting a Rs
700,000 bribe which was the second installment of a Rs 2.5 million payoff to
kill a report about the shenanigans of one Poonamchand Malu of Malu Financial
Services. Worse, the pay-off itself had apparently been haggled down from an
initial demand of Rs 10 million to Rs 2.5 million. Although corruption in the
media is no longer news, the actual arrest of two scribes and the sums
involved, marked a new low in this once honourable profession”. There! That’s
an extract from a report by Sucheta
Dalal titled “Selling news or buying silence?” in March 2003. Do read the whole article, it truly exposes pathetic journalistic practices of Arnab’s group. Have these
practices ended? Let Arnab verify and confirm they have.

In the post “India’s Biggest
Mafia” I had written: "Look deep into our media.You will find extortion,
blackmail, murder, connections with anti-national elements, black money.
Everything you can associate with a regular mafia you will find in equal
measure in the media too. But since they claim to be ‘God’s own messengers’ they will never expose their own mafia". Blackmailing is just a small part of our
media’s operationseven if Arnab
finds it amusing.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

In recent times Herman Cain,
an Afro-American candidate, pulled out of the race for the Republican party’s
nomination for US Presidential election in 2012. Three women from his past had
alleged sexual harassment by Cain which eventually forced him to abort his
campaign. In contrast, Abhishek Manu
Singhvi (AMS), MP and Congress spokesman, resigned on April 23 from various
posts after his alleged sexual adventures were leaked through a video on the
internet. That was enough for the Mainstream Media (MSM) and even PCI Chairman,
Justice Katju, to start screaming for controls over the social media. The sex
CD which involves AMS and a female lawyer was reportedly made by AMS’s driver
and according to AMS was “fake, doctored and morphed”. How a driver went to
Darbangha (Bihar) and found enough money and support and morphed a tape will
remain a technological wonder for a long time. His alleged motives are “dog-bites and low pay”. Seriously, many
of us may complain about our salaries but going to the extent of morphing our
bosses into sex videos is taking even revenge too far. Tsk, never mind!

The case was brought to public light not by the driver or by the MSM or
by the social media. It came to prominence when AMS filed a police complaint
against the driver and got an injunction from the Delhi HC against airing of
the CD. On what basis the HC gave the injunction is another mystery and it
almost sounds like pre-screening. Naturally, people wanted to know what was on
the CD and what the facts were. This is where the MSM failed as it completely
blacked-out the story. The court had
stayed airing of the CD and not the reporting of the story. It was then
that the story spread like wildfire on Twitter, Facebook and other social media
and finally parts of the CD were uploaded by some on the internet.

In response to the public clamour for the story Rajdeep Sardesai even responded by calling them “EternalVoyeurs”. Such is his disdain for ordinary people. Rajdeep also
asked why the Opposition was silent over the issue, as if they, or any
political voice, should determine what the press or media should be reporting
and discussing. A dead give-away.

Even so, when the cookie finally crumbled,
the MSM wasn’t discussing the AMS sex incident, they were busy debating whether
‘Internet is above the courts’ (For
uploading the CD against the court injunction) and some like Justice Katju and Sagarika Ghose were discussing ways and means to ‘check’ the social media.

Nothing would please our MSM
(and some politicians) more than to see the death of social media. It has
come to challenge their monopoly, their bias, their spins, their lies, and
their selective reporting. In the US the Internet media has seen the death of
many newspapers and quite a few TV channels. Some 300 newspapers have died in a
small country like UK. Unlike print and TV, social media requires the regular
MSM and public figures to be interacting with people sensibly which is where
they have failed in India. Public opinions can be suppressed in newspapers and
TV but not on the social media. So while raging against the people on the
social network and wanting to desperately ‘check’ them the Indian media
really needs to understand the way social media works and harness it
productively and profitably. Comments under the post “Media as cover-up artist for Seedy Singhvi” will reveal how even
keen news-watchers were totally unaware of the AMS incident. That is how
successfully the MSM blacked-out the story.

The Internet wasn’t created in India. The Internet didn’t evolve in
India. None of the major social media engines were created in India. For all
its other problems the US still remains a country with absolute freedom of
speech. President, Pope and even religion are no exceptions to such freedoms. Books are not banned and books can be burned. Nazi
group marches through Jewish localities to offend them is allowed. Protests at
funerals against dead ‘gay’ soldiers, in bad taste, are allowed. Bad taste is
not a crime. Therefore, for Internet and social media to thrive in the US
environment wasn’t as big a challenge as it is in India. Mind you, the same
laws that punish defamation or illegal activities otherwise also apply to
social media in the US. It does in India too. It is just that in India
free-speech is largely reserved for the powerful and the MSM. Now that the
situation is changing it’s causing unease among many in the media and politics.
US citizens over many years have grown used to and cherished their freedom of
speech. Most of them know what to believe and what to ignore. The Indian govt
and media simply doesn’t trust ordinary people to have the good judgement over
issues.

If the AMS CD was uploaded on the net it was because the media didn’t discuss
it. It got uploaded because people generally believed that this level of
gagging by a court and black-out by MSM can only mean there is truth in the story. That a prominent
lawyer like AMS would seek an injunction and instead of continuing the FIR against
the alleged conspirator reach a settlement with him further reinforces
the belief that the CD is neither morphed nor doctored. Apart from the
frivolous discussion; “Is Internet above courts” on CNN-IBN (who else but
Sagarika Ghose?) and other channels, NDTV even discussed if ‘India is going the US way’ on the media
issue. Among participants on NDTV was Shoma Chaudhury, editor of Tehelka, a
near-gossip tabloid, and the same tabloid that famously used call girls to do
their jobs. That is enough said for morality in media.

If there is evil in the social media, it is prevalent elsewhere too,
particularly in the MSM and politics. It is how we respond to it that counts.
It is not easy for someone to survive in the social network by constantly
peddling lies and misleading information. In Indian media it is definitely possible
and sometimes it even seems they are paid for it. For those screaming about
morals so much in the MSM there is an example of a prominent journalist Keith Olberman who was suspended from
his channel, MSNBC, for a small but undeclared donation he made to politicians.
In contrast people like Barkha Dutt are
celebrated in our media despite established wrong-doings. In the US Barkha Dutt
would have been permanently trashed and out of the media for good. So people
like Rajdeep Sardesai would do well not to sermonise on morality, which he
often does. The likes of Shoma Chaudhary, Sonia Singh (NDTV), Sagarika Ghose
should also be frequently reminded of the sordid NOTW affair in UK. That
tabloid is what much of Indian MSM should be compared to and not values of ‘Freedom
of speech’.

In the last US presidential election Youtube was successfully used by
CNN to allow ordinary people to put questions to the candidates and have them
debate the issues. Many other clips from Youtube are also used by US news
channels in their reports. Why Indian media cannot find productive use for
social media other than promoting egos of individual journalists is simply the
fear of sharing their turf. Forget harnessing social media productively, the
frequency with which our news channels twist and manipulate tweets to suit
their agenda actually amounts to abuse of social media by them.

The MSM perceives a loss to the social media on the issue of AMS, his
sexcapade and his final resignation. This is hardly the truth. Social media did not
bring AMS down. In the final scene of the movie ‘All the President’s men’ WaPo editor Ben Bradley
chides Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein thus: “You know the results of the latest Gallup Poll? Half the country never
even heard of the word Watergate. Nobody gives a shit”. That’s right half
the US didn’t know and didn’t give a shit till Nixon finally resigned. That was
despite tremendous coverage by the Washington Post and a few more newspapers.
Here we are, an entire MSM blacking out the AMS story and they want the world
to believe it is the evil of social media that has to be ‘checked’.

Social media didn’t bring AMS down. He brought himself down with his
dirty deeds, social media just showed the courage that MSM did not just as
Woodward and Bernstein didn’t bring down Nixon on their own. MSM, and Justice
Katju, would do well to partner social media rather than try to check it. If
ever ‘Power to the people’ made
sense in a democracy it is Social Media. Celebrate it!

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Here’s a profound statement from none other than Rajdeep Sardesai: “Bless social media! Power with zero
responsibility! Have a good day”. (Twitter April 17, 8.41 am). I can use this
particular statement for many debates. That can wait. In a ‘friendly fire’
article Firstpost, the online
sidekick of CNN-IBN, dismissed Rajdeep’s silly tweet as sweeping
generalisation. Alright, in another tweet (Wee hours of February 5, 12.14 am)
Rajdeep says “Tonight time to say F off to those who call us ‘paid media’.We
are journalists, not sensationalists or elitists. Gnight”. Hmm! Just months
back one of Rajdeep’s colleague, Pallavi
Ghosh, tweeted: “..That’s the unfortunate part, came to know yesterday that
some journos who I work with closely in Congress are on their payroll”. Pallavi’s
tweet was made at 9.53am on October 14, 2011.

Now, would Rajdeep and Pallavi make those statements on their TV
channel? I doubt it. But that’s how journos themselves use social media and
then complain about it. In response to my post IWJ-2012 another prominent journo tweeted it was “hate”. I asked her how she categorised “lampooning”
as hate. She responded stating it was contained in the mail that forwarded her
my post and not her own statement. Well, if one stored up all the quotes of
journos, most of them would find it hard to believe they actually said those
words. Self-righteous shills usually
forget what they said or did in the past. That is what brings me to the RTE
Act. While much has been said and written about the SC upholding the
constitutional validity of the Act it really hasn’t been debated as well in the
MSM as it has been in the social media. So Rajdeep would do well not to dismiss
social media as having “zero responsibility”. Many of the analysts and writers on social
media are far superior to the ones in MSM. Those in the MSM have typically discussed the RTE in a literary flourish rather
than with cold logic and facts. Do read on…

“Otherwise, let's be honest - we had become the sort of people who were
inured to the sight of a barely-clad shivering child, his tiny stomach
ballooned into hugeness by the absence of nutrition, as we indifferently drove
past the sight of him huddling with his mother for warmth on a tiny patch of
pavement every night. At the traffic lights - where our cars came into enforced
confrontation with poverty - and we saw a small hand stretched out for alms, or
a disabled man trying to wave a red rose or a magazine at us, imploring us for
help - we would barely look up from behind our over-sized designer sunglasses.
We would, in fact, sink back into the plush leather of our seats and be extra
determined that the story of India would no longer be told in picture-postcards
of poverty…. Over the many years that we
- the upper middle class - have lived in aggressive denial of the inequalities
in our social order, we have become more and more cocooned by our elitism. … That
is why the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the constitutional validity of
the Right to Education law for all schools - even in unaided private schools -
is such a potentially seminal moment for us as a people. And nowhere is our
intuitive social snobbery more apparent than in our resistance to the idea of
an economically and socially heterogeneous, inclusive classroom…. Others have
cloaked their subliminal social biases in apprehensions of a so-called clash of
cultures or possibilities of social maladjustment….” Do I hear applause? Thank
you!

Ah well, my momentary flash of literary genius has to be exposed
though. I didn’t write the paragraph above, it was another literary classic
from Barkha Dutt. Extracts from her article “Writes of passage” in Hindustan Times, April 13. That is how
you discuss a matter of an Act of Law: in literary flourishes devoid of much
logic or cold facts. And pray who is “WE”?
Add “Designer sunglasses” and “Plush” leather seats in cars. Is that “WE”? When champions of MSM like Barkha
want to transfer their personal life experiences as being of a larger population you don’t
need sound logic or arguments for any discussion or article. That is where
social media wins and does a better job.

Being in the education domain and one who has
interacted with more than 3000 schools, thousands of teachers, thousands of
children and parents I do know a little bit about schools and their problems. I
was associated with an organisation whose directors built one of the finest
schools in India from scratch. The school has become a near pilgrimage for any
education professional who visits my city. That school wasn’t built by Barkha’s
‘elites’ for the elites. It was built by a group of IIM-Ahmedabad graduates who
set up new standards for schooling and even for teacher education. Even before
RTE that school had a practice of enrolling a certain number of slum children
along with other students from upper classes. One of the founders lived in a
slum for months to understand their needs. And no, they aren’t ‘Jhollawalas’ or
NGOs and they don’t wear “designer sunglasses”. Those guys started another
organisation with negligible capital to improve the quality of school education
in India which is helping schools and even State govts. In another case, a sinking Municipal school
was taken over by a private body and turned into a well-functioning school now
known as ‘Mahatma Gandhi International School’. To me, the RTE Act is more a political act
rather than any real act for ensuring education for all children. And just like
child-labour laws it is destined for failure. Why? Govt failures cannot be
passed on to private citizens by strangling their freedoms and enterprise.

But let’s get back to Barkha Dutt. She is the Group Editor of NDTV and while writing so passionately
about changing caste and other equations and our “middle-class” biases she
forgets what her own organisation does for schools and people. If you go back
to first few paras of this post you will be reminded how journalists often
forget what they did or said in the past. Barkha forgot to remember that in
recent times NDTV joined Coca-Cola
in some school campaign. Now, would they have done the same campaign if
Coca-Cola weren’t involved and some other body without similar financial muscle
had undertaken it? I doubt it but still, it’s fine if, by the campaign, some
good comes to some schools somewhere.

Barkha forgets something else too; NDTV does
promote a certain set of schools – Elite,
Rich, Luxurious schools. More than just promote, NDTV is the ‘media-partner’ in that campaign. Yeah,
it’s called “Good Schools of India”
and NDTV promotes them through the directory. The news-channel had also
carried a number of advertisements promoting the directory. And what’s the
directory about? It’s a directory about the best residential schools in India. Ever
visited any of these schools? I can assure you most of them are luxury schools
which will be the biggest opponents of the RTE Act. These are hardly the very "..economically and socially heterogeneous, inclusive classroom" in schools that Barkha talks about. However, most of them won’t even be affected because no ‘disadvantaged or poor’ parents would even remotely think of sending
their children to these schools. So while the MSM, like Barkha, sheds tears
over the poor and disadvantaged, they haven’t really debated the finer points of
the RTE at all. Like in most other cases they failed to do their job.I wonder what Rajdeep would call that: "Zero responsibility" plus hypocrisy?

So, as my answer to Rajdeep Sardesai who claims social
media has zero responsibility I would recommend that he read the following
posts by different writers on RTE and
evaluate the quality of the discussion. It’s far superior to what one will find
on TV channels and newspapers:

There are many frivolous and even bad laws that get enacted because the
MSM does not do its job. Next time you see a child working at a tea stall or
restaurant, next time you see a child buying cigarettes or tobacco products
from a pan-shop, next time you see a child buying alcohol for another from a
shop remember the worthlessness of the related laws. The biggest Act of ‘Rights’ that the govt should pass
is irreversible one that ensures they never intrude in the lives and activities of private
citizens and entities. The govt’s courage to do the opposite is partly driven by the
self-righteous shill in the mainstream media who have nothing at stake and who, like Rajdeep and Barkha, look down on ordinary people as much as the govt does.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

It’s been a devastating start to the week for the media. If bad things
happen to the Congress party it’s the media that gets a viral infection. Two
such events drove the usually raucous media into a corner. First, a CD of
sexcapades of Abhishek Manu Singhvi,
spokesman of the Congress, surfaces and second, the party suffers a terrible
defeat in the Delhi MCD elections. On a day like Tuesday, April 17, all the
regular spokespersons of the Congress went into hiding. The only ones on TV
shows were rookies like Ragini Nayak
who, under the circumstances, put up a brave defence for the party.

Sheila Dikshit who led the
Congress campaign in Delhi was nowhere to be found for a comment on the
results. She showed up on Wednesday, April 18, to claim that the defeat and
result was a “collective responsibility”. Of course, failure doesn’t have an
owner. I do wonder why Dikshit went into a hiding earlier because NDTV had
already set the tone of the party’s defence with a brilliant headlining story: MCD polls: “BJP retains Delhi, but Congress makes gains”. So there was nothing to worry about as the
Congress had made gains in an election they lost. No further analysis required.

..Blurring the lines...

The cover-up of the various misdeeds of Sheila Dikshit is a stunning
example of a completely compromised media. They had done very well not to
mention CWG scam or how SD’s son was found with 10 Lakhs cash in Bhopal. Those
stories had gone cold without a trace. The conduct of Sheila Dikshit herself
during the campaign was unbecoming of a Chief Minister. Like others, she too
thought dragging in Narendra Modi would fool muslims. Here’s what she said: “They (BJP) often say that their next PM
would be Narendra Modi but they never call him for campaigning in polls. This
is because they know that if he ever comes here he will be stoned by people".
For the record, the Congress candidate from Ballimaran area where SD made the
statement also lost. There is a thin line between journalists and politicians
that should never be crossed. I’m not sure I can say that about our media. The
pic of Barkha Dutt and Sheila
Dikshit says a lot more than my words can.

The other devastating story of the Congress, the sex CD of Abhishek
Manu Singhvi (AMS), has so far been
muzzled by the media. The best they could come up with is if public figures
have a right to privacy (CNN-IBN). That discussion was, of course, moderated by
Karan Thapar. NDTV completely blanked out the story. Naturally, the question
everyone is asking is: What if the CD had
involved a BJP or TMC leader? Public or private, all hell would have broken
lose in the media. First, the private affairs of public figures definitely need
greater scrutiny than an ordinary citizen. Sonia Gandhi’s tax returns maybe
private but their scrutiny is in public interest. AMS didn’t have illegitimate
sex with his partner at his home or in a private resort. He is reported to have
had the joyride in his chambers in the court complex and that is certainly no
private hideaway.

...With pants down..

AMS is the same man who responded to the Karnataka MLAs porngate story
with the comment: “This is the real
chaal, charitra & chehra of BJP” which, translated, means the real face
and character of BJP. Another of their spokesmen, who else but Manish Tiwari,
responded with “.. they are defiling
temples of democracy”. Tiwari’s response was to the fake Gujarat porngate. The
story about the AMS CD is less important than the manner in which the media has
dealt with it. While he claimed that the CD was “fabricated, morphed and
doctored” none in the media, many of whom have seen it, were willing to
challenge it. Morphed and doctored? Surely, there are better models around to use than AMS for morphing sex CDs. Secondly, the media chose to hide under a court injunction that
restrained airing of the CD. The court
had only restrained airing of the CD and not the reporting of the incident and
the episode itself. Yet, much of the media totally blacked out any reports
on it. That is seedy and shameful conduct by journalists.

Here’s the most dangerous part which is not being touched upon by any
channel or newspaper. AMS’s partner is also reportedly a lawyer who is aspiring
to be a judge. Was the act of sex an advance for any favour? If so, then it’s a
crime of a very serious nature. This is the reason the incident requires a
thorough probe and cannot be dismissed as mere indiscretion and opportunism by
AMS. The court granted a stay against airing the CD as it may cause damage to
the reputation of AMS. Well, even without the stay there is really no need for
the media to air it. I have often said, in this day and age there is really no
place to hide. Some images from the CD are already on the internet and sooner
or later the whole CD will be out there somewhere. Also, if the CD is ‘fabricated
and morphed’ as AMS claims then that too is a serious crime against a public
official. However, by all accounts and images available so far the CD appears
to be genuine in which case AMS would be guilty of lying to the nation and to
the court. This is what media should be investigating and this does not require
airing of the CD itself.

The real funny part is: Why was the CD made in the first place? Who
made it? Is AMS such a dumb idiot that he allowed his driver to video shoot his
adventure? Was the driver witness to the act itself and shot the video on his
own? Or did AMS have the video recorded himself for use at a future date for
some reason? Did some potential blackmailer get blackmailed? These are the
questions the media needs to ask. But they won’t, for obvious reasons.
Regardless of the outcome of the incident, AMS will find it morally unfit for
him to hold any public office till the full truth is established. He should resign from all parliamentary
panels and from the Rajya Sabha membership. He would do the Congress a
great favour by quitting on his own. Sacking him at a later date, when more
gory details emerge, will only add to the embarrassment of the party. As for
the MSM they have played cover-up artists in the episode but it’s unlikely the
social media will let seedy journalism pass.

Friday, April 13, 2012

The previous edition of India’s Worst Journalist in 2010 on this site
still remains one of the most popular posts and also a very widely reproduced
one. Over the last decade or so our journalists have come to be held in the
same contempt that is usually reserved for politicians. Many of them have
simply forgotten the art and science of the profession and this is a serious
tragedy for aspiring journalists. How they came to such a pass is a long story.
The most prominent ones are not even journalists anymore; they are ‘Editorialists’ whose main job is to
swing public opinion one way or another. Add to this the epidemic of ‘paidnews’ and some of our news channels
and newspapers would be nothing more than Bollywood or Commercials. After all,
didn’t the late Christopher Hitchens
say: “I became a journalist because one
didn’t have to specialise”.

Some prominent faces from the 2010 roll of honour have dropped out. Vinod Mehta has retired from active
journalism and remains Chairman of Outlook. We wish him well. Suzy Roy has moved from part-time lie-mongering
to full-time Maoist-Hurriyat sympathiser. ‘Pastiwalas’ are over-joyed at the
ever growing size and weight of her 50+ page essays – they’re the only ones
handling them now. Prannoy Roy was
also dropped. He is now more into barbeque chats than any serious attempts at
journalism. Even elections don’t arouse him. But there are some new faces with
the old ones. Polling for IWJ ended
today and thanks to all those who voted. So here are the winners from the
poll, the list of India’s Worst
Journalists-2012 from the poll results. Their 2010 ranking is indicated
after their name:

Large & Larger..

10. Nidhi Razdan, NDTV (New
entry): She has come to prominence more for many reasons other than journalistic
skills. ‘Left, right, centre’ is her signature programme and happens to be one
of those mindless debates on every topic under the sun. She is proof that you
can be an expert on everything with specialisation in nothing. The best part of
Nidhi? Now, don’t get me wrong, she likes everything large. Whenever confounded
by a brilliant argument or point by a panellist she quickly jumps to her
favourite line “let’s look at the LARGER picture”. One would have thought that
debates are meant to look at the finer small details. No, not with Nidhi, the
larger picture is a convenient exit. Training from NDTV helps. My prediction
for this debutant is that she is likely to go higher up in the list in the future.

Friendly five member

9. Kumar Ketkar (New entry):
Somewhere a brief bio about Ketkar says “He started his life as an active communist worker of the Lal Nishan Paksh (Red flag party)”. Now why is that not
so surprising? And that also explains Ketkar somewhat. He is also reported to
be a former speech writer during elections for Congress members. Isn’t that an
accomplishment any journalist would be proud of? He has been mostly a Marathi
journalist and last heard he is editor of Divya Marathi. A respected veteran,
he was one of the privileged Five invited to a private press meet of PM
Manmohan Singh around June 2011. Ever since, it has been downhill. He achieved
his right to be on this list through his performances as a panellist. What can
I say? I hope being a veteran he doesn’t appear here in the future.

Your Banal

8. Arnab Goswami, TimesNow
(2010 #3): There can be no denying that Arnab is one of the rare patriots among
journalists. Almost every one wishes our judiciary could be as quick and
decisive as Arnab is. Which is the reason I conferred him the title ‘Justice Arnab’. His performance on
TimesNow has definitely battered ratings of NDTV and CNN-IBN. Pick up any scam,
any scandal Arnab can throw the documents at you. IB, RAW, GOI have no escape –
all documents and papers have to pass through Arnab. Sometime back I remarked:
Most of us wake up in the morning and want Coffee or Tea! Not Arnab, he just
wants ‘answers’. Such are the never-ending questions he has. Much before Arnab
became a journalist the rock band U2
wrote a song for him – “I still haven’t
found what I’m looking for”. They were the only ones to anticipate all the
unanswered questions he’d come up with. Undeniable fact is that Arnab has
dropped from #3 in 2010 to #8 in 2012 on this list. That is proof of his
ever-growing popularity. He can out-shout anyone in this world. Anyone, except
Meenakshi Lekhi and Smriti Irani.

Fine WhINES

7. Vir Sanghvi (2010 #9): I
honestly don’t have any idea whatsoever what Sanghvi currently does. I don’t
even see him on any Cookery or Foodie show. He must be doing something to merit
an appearance on this list again, at a higher position even. Radiagate has
damaged him far more than any other journalist, which is unfortunate. He
managed to surface sometime back on his home channel NDTV claiming the Radia
tapes were doctored and weren’t authentic and were tested by reliable foreign
forensic labs. Nobody bought that though. Sometimes, a wayward journalist, at
his peak, forgets simple decency. Sanghvi will forever be haunted with two
things: Radiagate and the fact that he called Narendra Modi a ‘mass-murderer’.
He will regret both episodes. Had it not been for Modi ignoring his stupid
outburst Vir Sanghvi would have been in prison writing a cookery book or his
autobiography titled “Fine Whines!”.

No facts, please

6. Karan Thapar (2010 #4): Readers
must remember that every journo looks tall in the studio but not in actual
life. KT is not blessed with stature and the same goes for his journalism. One
can say he has improved a bit but still retains the unwanted scowl and growl
when interviewing people. Madhu Trehan
in her NewsLaundry interview showed
up KT for the little puppy he was. Like the ones who just need a hug and a
cuddle once in a while. And if you thought you knew nothing about KT, never
mind. All you have to do is hear his signature line on his promo for his show
on CNN-IBN: “I don’t want to go into the
facts, the facts are disputed”. LOL! Facts are disputed? You have to undo a
lot of learning to understand that facts aren’t facts and can be
disputed. The worst job KT did in 2011 was massaging Kapil Sibal’s brazen
attempt at pre-screening content on the internet. As if that wasn’t enough he
pulled out Brajesh Mishra, former NSA, out of nowhere to call serving army
chief, Gen. VKSingh, the worst ever chief of army in history. My prediction: As
long as he is in the business, KT will be on this list.

Wheres the smirk?

5. Vinod Sharma (New entry):
For those who don’t know, Vinod Sharma is the political editor of Hindustan
Times. That’s right, ‘Political’ is the key word – less of an editor and more
of a politician. It’s not very hard to recognise VS on a friendly channel. He
has made the ‘smirk’ more popular than child-molester DGP Rathore on
television. Sharma has also been acknowledged by many political spokespersons
and viewers as the most loyal spokesperson of the Congress party. No matter
what the scam or what the scandal you can expect him to staunchly defend even
the worst misdeeds of the Congress by blaming it on the opposition or anyone
else he can lay his hands on. The one chance to get him off TV for longer
periods was a Rajya Sabha ticket, when Shobana Bhartiya, his boss at HT exited,
but that unfortunately didn’t happen. So we’re going to be stuck with VS for
quite a while. His best moment in recent times was during the debate over Gen.
VK Singh and the Tatra trucks scam. He was angry that the debate was going one
way (in favour of Gen. Singh) so had to somehow twist it against the tide. In
his business time VS writes a blog titled ‘Separated at birth’. I guess that
refers to some Pakistani connection or maybe his journalistic independence was
separated at birth. Someday we’ll find out.

4.Shekhar Gupta (2010 #10): (Content held back on account of Indian Express' legal action with Google)

I washed my hands in the Hammam

3. Rajdeep Sardesai (2010 #6):
Hmmm! The guy is making progress alright. I have always maintained there are
two Rajdeeps – One on TV and one off it. Whenever he is off TV his conscience
strikes and one can hear a sane person, sometimes profound, sometimes
emotional. But his character loses focus in front of the camera. Recently, he
lamented on Twitter about being abused as a’Muslim whore and a Motherf$#!#*’.
Bad, but the kind of abuse of journalistic ethics that Rajdeep has frequently
allowed under his watch is far more serious. He has even given the media the
right to ‘conduct hearings’ against personalities. While he wonders about
‘image makeovers’ for others, there is no way he can ever get past the
Cash4Votes bungling or the terribly biased reporting on Gujarat riots. His 2007
conduct of an HT Summit which featured a key speaker reflects a character of
pathetically low moral values and journalistic ethics. And to top that he
defended the tainted Radiagate journalists and was rightly ‘slapped’ by his own
community. Death of decent journalism owes a small debt to him. He has rightly
earned the nick name ‘Hammamboy’!

If it's Friday, it must be...

2. Sagarika Ghose (2010 #2):
Ms. Cacofonix stays where she was: at No.2. You can’t fault Sagarika for not
trying hard enough to be India’s worst journalist. She has made every effort in
the recent past to get to #1. Journalism gives her a bad name. For her truly
pathetic and fraudulent ‘live’ show with SriSri she would have been sacked from
any TV channel in the world. That in itself is a reflection of the ethics and
morals practiced at CNN-IBN by her and her boss Rajdeep Sardesai. You can
imagine the skulduggery behind all other programmes and debates. And if that wasn’t
enough she misses no chance to prove she is a ‘journalistic bimbo’ by mindless
tweets on the social network. Be it about ‘ugly Indian males’, or Orange being
a colour in our national flag or sending out a Good Friday greeting and
withdrawing it she is truly the court-jester of Indian journalism. What can I
say? Better luck next time!

Me, Myself & I

1. Barkha Dutt (2010 #1):
For the second time in a row Barkha retains her position as India’s worst
journalist in the poll, by a whopping margin. The only road to redemption is
apologising for past blunders. While she and another one have been vocal in
demanding apologies and expressions of remorse from public figures the same
standard doesn’t seem to apply to her. No matter what she does the taint of Radiagate and many other indiscretions
are unlikely to disappear. The accusations of causing deaths in Kargil or in
26/11 are also going to linger. She is probably
the only news celeb on TV that has a ‘wardrobe sponsor’. All the image makeovers may not help much. Most of us have held
Rahul Gandhi for the Congress’ UP election disaster but Barkha and NDTV must be
credited with the disaster too. No one has singularly promoted RG and his cause
and almost turned him into India’s saviour till the engine got derailed. Her penchant
for Pakistani politics and politicians is another thing that disgusts many
viewers. In the meantime her language keeps getting better and better. In a
recent tweet she responded to sarcasm with: “… ‘ .. if ever language betrayed desperation of loser, it is
here…” Losers or not, with over 70% of the votes polled, Barkha is the absolute winner here. Cheers!

So there you are. Let’s also not forget that are many journalists who
now increasingly seem to be anti-nationals. Their ties to Ghulam Nabi Fai aren’t
even being investigated by the govt. Industry leaders usually raise the
standards of performance of the industry as a whole. The opposite seems to be true
in the media. Systematically, many of India’s journalists have brought the
profession to rock bottom over the years. I continue to maintain, they are the
greatest threat to our democracy.

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Never has there been a prolonged campaign of calumny against a single individual as the one carried out by our media and certain sponsored activists. All of that came to an end on April 10. The report of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) finally established there was no evidence that Narendra Modi was involved in the Gujarat riots of 2002. The decade long campaign of evil finally died a gruesome death. Some of the most prominent names in the media also died a symbolic death. We remember those names and many more and pray that in the death of the news media there will be newer ones who will find their conscience. In ever loving memory of the conscience and careers of:

In his book 'The Death of Media' writer Danny Schechter states that “We can’t fix America without fixing the media” The Death of Media shows why the fight to change our media is bigger than any political fight yet. It's not true for just the American media but equally true for the Indian media. We can't fix our political struggles without cleaning up our media first. A good part of our media died on April 10, 2012. Let's celebrate the death of evil.

Monday, April 9, 2012

There is something about Justice Markandeya
Katju that’s keeping him in the news. Yesterday, the former SC judge and
now PCI Chairman once again reiterated his belief that “90% Indians are fools”. I don’t agree with a lot of other things
that Katju says but I do find some sense in it when he frequently suggests 90%
of Indians are fools. I am also quite certain that he doesn’t mean ‘fools’ as
in deprived of thinking skills but rather the unwillingness to think. For a
start, it is people from this very 90% that vote for an alien to power for no
rhyme or reason. It’s also quite possible that ‘Fair and Lovely’ thrives on much of this 90% population. We have
been told that 70% of the nation is made of up youth. Unfortunately, most of
the 70% is also made of Katju’s fools. One can’t blame the 40% or so people
below the poverty line whose daily struggle would leave them with little or no
time to think. But Katju doesn’t specifically state anywhere that this ‘90%
fool population’ also includes much of our media. Some of our media people are
not just foolish, a few of them border on outright anti-national. That is the
only explanation for their going overboard over a private visit of a
much-maligned President Asif Ali Zardari
of Pakistan. Affectionately called ‘Mr.10%’,
Zardari crossed over to lunch with our PM, Manmohan Singh, on his way to pray
at Ajmer. Perfect! Why MMS is not called
‘Mr. 10%’ is a mystery to me.

From Times Of India

Take a look at this cartoon from Times of India. Observe carefully. There is something seriously missing. I
will leave it to you to figure what is missing for now. Sometime in 1998 in the
middle of all the sex scandals Bill Clinton bombed Sudan and Afghanistan.
Turned out the target in Sudan was a pharma company. Never mind. Clinton was
then accused of diverting attention from the scandal and the incident even seemed
inspired by a movie; ‘Wag The Dog’.
Zardari’s visit is somewhat similar. Look at Pakistan – plagued with troubles,
a bounty on terrorist Hafiz Saeed recently announced by the US, a general
election around the corner and the list could go on. It was the perfect time
for Zardari to go on a religious trip to a shrine in Ajmer in India. To add to
emotional content he tags along son Bilawal Bhutto. Aha! Like our own Priyanka
Vadra, Bilawal doesn’t seem very willing to let go of the Bhutto tag. Perfect!
On the other hand there’s MMS, drowned in a sea of scams. If Zardari wants to
pray at Ajmer MMS makes sure he doesn’t pray on an empty stomach. So he invites
him to lunch on the way. Nothing wrong, these are common courtesies to be
extended to any state head. Nothing wrong, except another foolish episode by
our media.

From the morning of April 8 till around 4pm in the afternoon when
Zardari finally left Ajmer all the usual suspects were on TV. Fortunately,
Rajdeep Sardesai and Arnab Goswami chose to stay away. However, we had Barkha
Dutt on NDTV, Suhasini Haider on CNN-IBN and the rest with a non-stop
commentary on a non-event. Was there anything to the luncheon meet? Except for
small talk maybe nothing was expected and nothing happened. The usual
invitation to the PM to visit Pak, and a similar invitation by Bilawal to Rahul
Gandhi apart, the other loose change was predictable. Zardari talked about
Kashmir and Siachen and MMS talked about terrorism. This is the ‘foolishness’
Katju is probably referring to. Fed on a daily dose of tamasha and cover up of
real news, people generally ‘drink the
sand’ even when they know it doesn’t quench their thirst. And if nothing came
out of the lunch, there was always soap in the form of Rahul-Bilawal.

Pic received from @Sheefal

So some of our media slaves started belting out stories of how Rahul
and Bilawal are similar. How both are soft-spoken and thorough gentlemen,
though I’m not quite sure Rahul wants to get rid of his newly acquired ‘angry-at-everything’ image. I don’t know
much about Bilawal because he is yet to demonstrate his stupidity. However, if
stories that abound somewhere, as here in the Daily Mail, he is truly equipped to match Rahul in every
respect. Like drama-queens they even strike similar poses as the pic shows.
Would be harsh to comment on Pakistan and Bilawal. But yes, it does take a
nation of fools to put an established fool like Rahul Gandhi in any seat of
power. But like Katju says, we have 90% fools here and which is the reason RG
is even in the limelight. The much touted ‘intelligent’ youth of the nation is
brought up by our media on a healthy diet of Pyjama Cricket, Bollywood crap and
shows like BigBoss. I can assure you 90% of these youth, the future of India’s
glory, can’t find Bangalore or Bhopal on a map. I would credit them with
extra-ordinary intelligence if they even manage to name the state capitals of
MP or Kerala unless they are residents of those states.

One of the other problems with the media and our politicians is this
mirage of a peaceful and friendly
Pakistan. This not only gives them enough to spin tales, it keeps the money
flowing. Sons often carry on the legacy of their parent or the promises the
parents made. This Bilawal is the grand-son of a Bhutto who has promised a “thousand-year
holy war against India”. This Bilawal is the son of a Bhutto who can be
credited with fomenting and sowing the seeds of terrorism in Kashmir. There will
never be peace with Pakistan. NEVER! Our option is to not seek a war or any
conflict but this charade of peace is a tool with which politicians and media
fool the fools from both nations. And we have 90% of them, as Katju frequently
reminds us.

Change is inevitable. But we have had a long line of PMs who have had less
of a political inclination and more of an emotional attachment to the nonsense
called Pakistan peace. And the media, in its quest to earn a few more bucks,
adds to this blatant untruth. MMS may long for his hometown in Lahore or Advani
might long for Sindh. The emotional connection is fine. But unless and until
India has a PM who has no baggage of historical connections and is willing to
look at Pakistan for what it is today, there isn’t the slightest chance of any
reconciliation or peace. Zardari is affectionately called ‘10%’ but MMS is a ‘10%’
too. MMS is 10% PM and 90% either a puppet or a doormat. Worse, MMS could be
10% and the rest of him could fall in Katju’s basket. The problem with the TOI
cartoon I first referred to is that it shows only Zardari sitting on the lap of
his army boss. The right one would have been to also show MMS sitting on the
lap of Sonia Gandhi. That would be reality. In absence of any real powers
vested in either Sardarji or Zardarji, this is just a meeting of two 10
Percents.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

General Douglas MacArthur
was easily one of the most powerful army generals there ever was. He was the
youngest Chief of Staff of the US Army. He was the one that oversaw the
surrender of Japan in 1945 as WWII ended. For many years he was effectively the
ruler of Japan. He was Field Marshall of the Philippine army as also the
Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific area. In 1951, in a continuing confrontation
with his boss, President Harry Truman,
he was fired. Gen. MacArthur remains a celebrated hero in the US. Parks and
monuments are named after him. Stories about him are told in classrooms. Songs
have been written and sung about him. Films have been made about him.

Gen. MacArthur left the army in honour. But if you go by the
imagination of the likes of Shekhar
Gupta the general would have conducted strange manoeuvres to battle the
President instead of leaving and almost staged a coup. Maybe he would have even
declared himself permanent emperor of Japan and Philippines This is what
journalism has fallen to at the Indian
Express. Turning incidents of ‘un-notified’ troop movement into
fear-mongering and misleading the nation to believe there was grave danger of a
coup. We will come to all of that in a bit.

Before you proceed maybe you would like to look up a bit of history.
Here are some posts on this site about Gupta’s passionate skulduggery for the
Congress party. ‘Shekhar Gupta's Summer Freeze’, ‘Shekhar Gupta - Doctoring & Nursing The Congress’ and ‘Saving Shekhar’s Indian Express’. Nobody can recall how a newspaper that was
famous for its bold anti-establishment stance and standing up for freedom of
the press has come to be a doormat for a political party. In the recent past
Gupta and his pitiful rag, including writers like Tavleen Singh, have done hit
jobs on anyone that has had a confrontation with the Congress-UPA govt. This
includes Anna Hazare and Team Anna, particularly Kiran Bedi, Baba Ramdev and
now comes the turn of the Army chief Gen.VK Singh.

So today, April 4, the Indian Express splashes a front page story with
screaming headlines: “The January night Raisina Hill was spooked: Two key Army units moved towards Delhi without notifying Govt.” This is about the night of January 16 when the Army
chief and the govt. were in a confrontation over the General’s age issue. On January
16 the army chief had filed a petition in the Supreme Court in the issue of his
date of birth. Strange co-incidence at best you might say. What’s the story? Intel
agencies reported an unexpected, un-notified movement by key military units,
from infantry units based in Hisar (Haryana) in the direction of Delhi, about
150 km away. Following this, there was a flurry of activities in the defence
department with even a Defence Secretary being recalled from a foreign tour.
That the troops were stopped outside Delhi. To add to the drama, as IE states: “..The
situation changed rapidly, though. Reports came in of yet another military
movement “towards” Delhi. This unit was identified as a large element of the
airborne 50 Para Brigade based at Agra”. The govt. didn’t know and according to
the IE report army spokesperson had clarified that these were routine
exercises.

But the mischief is not in the event or the incident of January 16
itself. The mischief is in the headline of IE, especially when read in the
background of recent bad-blood between the Army and the Defence Ministry and
the govt. It clearly led all other news outlets and the general public to
believe that there was a possible ‘coup’ attempt that night. Clever! And
throughout the day news channels have been busy discussing if it was indeed a
coup attempt and what could have been the possible outcomes of such troop
movements. Somewhere in his dark, dusty office at the IE building in Delhi
Shekhar Gupta and his co-writers of the article, Ritu Sarin and Pranab
Samanta must have had a good laugh over having fooled everybody, including
their competitors. And if all that wasn’t enough you will have Sagarika Ghose, India’s best Defence
expert, debating if reporting on ‘sensitive’ matters relating to the Army
is ‘anti-national’ on her show FTN on CNN-IBN. Bravo!

So what exactly was the motive
for Shekhar Gupta’s mischief? Let’s read the opening lines of his article: “This
is a story you would tell with extreme care and caution. But it so starkly
characterises the current state of top-level politico-military relations that
it is a folly to keep it under wraps, as the entire establishment has tried to
do for a full 11 weeks now”. So you read that and tighten your belts to read
the biggest scandal or potential threat. But the article hits the peak in the
first few lines and then its downhill all the way. For all the experts who
speculated on a possible coup the IE cleverly doesn’t even mention the word
even once. That is great trickery at its best because it leaves so much to your
imagination. At a press conference reporters even asked A.K. Antony if there were threats of a coup and he dismissed the IE
report as ‘baseless’. The PM dismissed
the IE report as ‘alarmist’ and
TimesNow had to call in expert Mahroof
Raza to explain the coup possibilities. In his usual candid assessment Raza
dismissed the possibilities as ‘nonsense’ without actually saying so. Another
past senior army officer called the report “planted by anti-national elements”. I would tend to agree with him.
So essentially the IE article was sensationalism at best and utter nonsense at
worse. Other than the spooky headline there is actually nothing in the article
that is worth being alarmed.

Given that the Army chief has had confrontations with the defence
ministry, there is a stinging letter by him to the PM which was leaked (and
exposed by DNA), and this has resulted in the govt cutting a sorry figure in
the continuing episodes, something had to be done. That seems to be the motive
behind the sensational headline by Shekhar Gupta which makes it sound as if the
Army had nearly run over an elected govt in India. Secondly, the article also
clandestinely casts a shadow over Gen. VK Singh and makes it sound like he may
have gone to the extent of over-throwing the govt on account of his fight with
the govt. Of course, it doesn’t say all this in so many words but let’s you
draw that conclusion. So like with Team Anna and Kiran Bedi and others Shekhar
Gupta attempted another hit job on the Army and the Army Chief. Unfortunately,
his attempt can be best described as a ‘failed coup’.

Despite his confrontations with President Truman, Gen.MacArthur was and
remains forever a very popular General. The govt. probably realised that there
is little they could do with Gen. VK Singh considering the immense popularity
he has acquired as he took on corruption and the corrupt in the Army. Had they
so desired they could have removed Gen. Singh but not tried to dent his
reputation and popularity. Instead, there has been a lot of mud-slinging
against Gen. Singh from the govt. and particularly the ‘anti-national’ media. Shekhar
Gupta’s ‘failed coup’ is another attempt at that and nothing more. That the entire story could be a 'plant' is further reasoned by this article in the the SundayGuardian: "Senior minister Sutradhar of coup report?"

Once upon a time the IE was the second most read newspaper in Bombay
and in many other cities. It has sunk without a trace in many cities and
survival against competition can only be with putting out lousy stories with
screaming headlines. By evening today, Shekhar Gupta is the laughing stock of the nation. He
will really have to start worrying how he spooked himself and IE. He managed to
lay an egg alright. LOL! He made only one mistake – He should have called
Arindam to count it before it hatched. As it stands, this has to be the worst
report of the year gone terribly wrong so far.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Guy comes home after a hard day's work. Finds his wife in bed,
probably nude under a blanket that covers her from neck to toe. Gets a curious
look on his face. Suspects something’s going on. Starts looking around for the
culprit. And there in the closet finds John
Abraham. But the ever loving John has a good excuse for being in the
closet. He was “searching for his bag” – Skybags!
John gleefully explains the beauty of Skybags and those ‘caster wheels’. Says
those are handy to ‘run’. And then demonstrates it by jumping out and running
away, dragging his Skybag with him. Husband nods in admiration at his wife and
says “it can really run”. Skybags saves the day and the wife escapes being
caught at her adulterous affair by a dumb husband. Are you laughing? Well, you’re
supposed to because the whole thing is intended to be humorous.

Skybags - Adultery is Okay!

That would have been okay for an Adults joke book. But what exactly is
such an ad doing on news and other channels in the MSM? Weren’t these guys
supposed to be the ‘moral watchdogs’? Be it porn or murders resulting out of
affairs, our news channels don’t tire telling us how Indian values are being
lost, how society is dumbing down by the day. They even get psychologists to
analyse us. Ah well, I suppose given that much of our media is essentially a
Page-3 club these affairs and adulterous conduct would be normal for them.
Lately, very few days have passed when some channel or the other hasn’t discussed
porngate and have had debates over whether porn should be legalised.

First, let’s get the Adultery part over with. Under Indian laws
Adultery is punishable with a fine or five years in prison and can also be
grounds for divorce. The woman is not considered guilty and is not punishable.
In the Skybags ad, it implies the woman is clearly adulterous but we can’t be
sure about John because we don’t know if the guy is married. But that is about
the ad and I guess Skybags, which was launched around 1992-93, must be having a
hard time with sales and needed a silly ad to get back into good business. But
this is about our media. And greed is their creed! If it brings in the moolah, anything goes.

The editor of a news channel, as with print media, is responsible for
all content that appears on it. Be it news, be it ads, campaigns and even the
scrolls that run at the bottom of the screen. So if this ad appeared on
TimesNow, NDTV, CNN-IBN then Arnab Goswami, Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai
respectively would be responsible. True for other channels as well. So the very
people who lecture the nation on morals do not think twice before carrying an
adulterous ad. Is the ad illegal? No, in my assessment it is not. But surely, these
editors seem to have missed the double standards they practice. Who knows, next
time there might be an ad where a man rapes a woman and then escapes by using
Skybags, since it’s quick on wheels, or some such product and our editors won’t
mind carrying it. Looks like morals end where money starts. More importantly,
these very channels who scream day in and out about women’s dignity and rights
do not mind carrying an ad where one is portrayed as cavalier bimbo.

There is this Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI). This is
another toothless body, like the PCI, made up of media channels and advertisers
and advertising agencies. Still, I am sure even the ASCI will not deny that the
Skybags ad is in bad taste. So the next time our media sermonises on porn,
just remember they are fine with and endorse affairs and adultery. In their
Page 3 culture there’s nothing wrong with that.

Moral of the story? If you’re planning to have an affair or commit
adultery, make sure you have a bag with wheels. It makes for a great ‘Getaway’
and our media supports your adventure. Have a good one ! Hahaha!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

When the opening line of an article reads: “I'm all for free speech and
against attempts to gag dissent” it’s a clear warning about what is going to
follow. All the ‘Ifs and buts’ and then sound reasoning why there should be
regulation and some form of censorship will start pouring. Surprisingly, in the
MSM it doesn’t come from religious heads or bigots. It usually comes from news
reporters and editors. The name Sanjay
Pinto didn’t seem very familiar till I looked it up. Aha, this guy is from
the same stable that holds the social networks in utter contempt – NDTV.
Funnily enough, Pinto appears prominently in their section called ‘NDTV Social’. After all, it was originally
his colleague and frustrated star Barkha
Dutt, the epitome of decency and uprightness that first waged a war against
bloggers and lost. Something about the social network bothers Barkha, Nidhi
Razdan, Sonia Singh and now Sanjay Pinto. I am tempted to ask ‘Sanjay Pinto ko
gussa kyon aata hai’ after reading his piece titled “The Social Network — Unknown abusers” in The Hindu. So let’s
see what Pinto had to say.

Pinto writes: “The tenor of anonymous tweets would make even the most liberal
crusaders for free speech think twice about demanding the decriminalisation of
defamation. There is intolerance for ‘the other view', vulgarity and
vituperation in 140 characters. There is mob psychology at play. And there is
uncontrolled, apparently unmonitored rudeness on what is meant to be a
wonderful platform to “find out what's happening about people and organisations
you care about.” Mob Psychology? Hahaha, welcome to ‘The Family’! Of all the
people on Twitter Pinto seems to be reading tweets only from the rude and
vulgar ones, especially the ‘anonymous’ types. You should really be reading the
feedback page of NDTV or any other channel where you can read comments from
people who watch the channel are displayed. Oh, now don’t ask me where that
feedback page is, because you’re not going to find it anywhere. For NDTV and
Sanjay Pinto it is hard to even listen to and absorb genuine feedback or
criticism so why should this guy be even bothered with rude and vulgar tweets.
And where do these supposed journalists even get the right to deliver moral
sermons?

The problem with these moralists is that it’s the identity that counts
and not what is being said. If Shekhar Kapur were to tweet Barkha Dutt and say “Your
program sucks” then that would be okay, but if an anonymous person were to say
the same thing, he would be a troll. After all didn't NDTV misuse a tweet by Amitabh Bachchan to imply he rubbished Virat Kohli? (And later apologised) Still, look up Barkha’s TL on her Twitter
account and you will find endless tweets of ‘Thanks’, ‘Thank you’ and so on.
You are unlikely to find any response to criticism. When Prasanna Vishwanathan (@prasannavishy), a popular
tweeter and respected web journalist himself, once pointed out a critical article
to Barkha, she barked back: “Why don’t you
and your friends go rant in your own corner”. Sagarika Ghose once responded to the same person with the remark: “You’re a gutter-snipe”. Now, I can tell
you with a good deal of certitude that @prasannavishy is neither anonymous nor
a troll and you will agree if you go through his tweets. Sanjay Pinto probably doesn’t
read tweets from his own ‘mob’ who may be non-anonymous but are quite frequently as
rude and vulgar as the ones he laments about.

And no, I really haven’t forgotten the anonymous part. Pinto seems to
be unaware that if there is some serious trouble then even anonymous accounts
and fake IDs can be traced and located. That, though, is not the problem here.
You see, this Pinto and his mob sort of believe only those who reveal their
identity have any right to comment or tweet. By this stupid logic we should
also know who voted for whom in a ‘secret ballot’. Okay, that might sound silly
but here’s a brilliant note on why anonymity is as much a valued possession as
an identity. Tweeter @RealityCheckInd
wrote this piece “Thank you from Google India” during the height of Kapil Sibal’s nonsense about
pre-screening. I recommend Sanjay Pinto
and all the other morons in the MSM read the piece before breast-beating about
anonymous users of the social network. And Pinto forgets, it was CNN-IBN that was begging
Bachchan to promote one of their programs or articles on Twitter because
of his celebrity following. Naturally, of what use are anonymous
idiots!

Pinto goes on: Fake profiles, especially for public figures, have
become such a nuisance that genuine users are inconvenienced. For instance, the
twitter ID ‘Rajdeep Sardesai' is taken. The original Rajdeep has had to create
one in true Olympic-list style with ‘Sardesai Rajdeep'. Here, the nature of the
tweets, scoops or programming information, are usually enough to distinguish a
real celebrity from an impostor. Really? What is it about CNN-IBN’s Rajdeep
Sardesai that makes him the ‘Original Rajdeep’. LOL! Did he invent the name? The
@RajdeepSardesai account clearly and sarcastically mentions he is not to be
confused with the RS of the Cash4Votes infamy. And by what logic does Pinto
imply that the @rajdeepsardesai account is an impostor? I can guarantee there might be at least a 1000 Sanjay Pintos in India. Which is probably why even his Twitter account has an underscore to it (@sanjay_pinto). If you go through the
TL of @RS you won’t find any tweet or message that remotely resembles those of
the IBN Rajdeep and nor does it claim to be even a parody account. But these
are the childish concerns that seem to occupy the idle minds of journos like
Sanjay Pinto.

Pinto also talks about defamation. As far as I can see there are really
no serious cases of defamation on the social network. People on the network aren’t
stupid enough to fall for lies and frivolous comments by others, whether
anonymous or identified. And defamation happens only when people seriously
believe some falsehood about a person as being true. Hypothetically, if I were
to call Sanjay Pinto a part-time bar dancer not only are people unlikely to
believe me but I would be receiving a lot of brickbats and very scathing
criticism from readers of this blog. The problem with the Pintos, Barkhas and
his clan is that they do not believe that common citizens have the brains to
sift the grain from the chaff.

Here is what really bothers Pinto as he writes: "In most newsrooms, Twitter is slowly
overtaking even news wires as a source of information. When this medium is
going to occupy such an important role in our lives, users must be entitled to
higher standards of reliability and safety. For starters, let the social-media
moguls work to ensure better safeguards against misuse. And let users start
reading the terms of service before clicking on the ‘I Agree' button”. That is
true, the MSM is really rattled that some media other than their own has now
the power to influence opinions and events. If morals and righteousness were
the issues Pinto would be asking Barkha, Sagarika and many others of his ‘mob’
to resign from their jobs for the immense damage they have caused to
journalism. But no, like the ones named Pinto believes they are ‘God’s lonely
messengers’ and their turf shouldn’t be invaded.

Friend @WordofThefree
who brought Pinto’s POS to my notice also tweeted that there are Block buttons,
Spam buttons, Report buttons. I believe instead of sermons, Sanjay Pinto should
first learn to use those buttons. If defamation is an issue, far more cases can
be piled up against the MSM media mafia than on those on Twitter or any other
social media. Pinto would also do well to read my previous post and realise the
MSM channels abuse Twitter far more than any other group.